After Devonte Coppage’s young cousins were killed in a gang-related firebombing in St. Paul in 1994, his mother moved her family to Edina.

“Because of our last name and fear of retaliation, I tried to shelter my kids,” Quiana Williams said Monday. She wanted to protect her children from violence, but it found her son in St. Paul on Friday.

Coppage, now 22, was fatally shot while trying to buy marijuana outside a gas station at White Bear and Maryland avenues, according to a criminal complaint.

Coppage was a college student and the father of a baby boy, Williams said.

“I don’t want him to be made out to be a villain because he was not a villain,” his mother said. “I know that he did use marijuana and he may not have been doing everything that I asked him and told him, but for him to be killed over some marijuana was unfair.”

The Ramsey County attorney’s office charged Antonio Ray Seals, 18, of St. Paul with unintentional second-degree murder Monday. Seals was shot in the arm during the incident outside the BP Station at 1200 White Bear Ave.

Seals told police that Coppage of Minneapolis shot him first, but a homicide investigator informed Seals the bullet pulled from his arm indicated he’d shot himself, the criminal complaint said.

Police were called to the gas station at 6:36 p.m. Friday on a report of shots fired. Coppage’s brother had accompanied him to the station after Coppage arranged by phone to buy marijuana, the complaint said.

Coppage got in the back seat of a car with three young men inside and told his brother to wait by the station. The brother heard three to five shots and saw Coppage lying in the parking lot.

“He ran to Coppage, picked his injured brother up by the chest, and pulled him across the lot and into the store because he didn’t want Coppage to be out in the cold,” the complaint said.

Police searched the area and found two sandwich baggies that contained 24.7 grams of marijuana, a .22-caliber handgun and blood on the north side of the gas station property. The gun had a loaded magazine but no round in the chamber.

Coppage’s brother later told police that Coppage had showed him a handgun at his house on New Year’s Eve. Before they went to the gas station, Coppage’s brother asked him if he had the gun. Coppage said no and that he’d left the gun with someone else, the complaint said.

An officer had gone to Regions Hospital to determine if any suspects or victims arrived with injuries from the shooting. He saw a car arrive at a high rate of speed, and two people got out and ran into the hospital.

The officer stopped the car and arrested the driver, Alfonso Ray Seals, 21, of St. Paul. At the hospital, police arrested Antonio Seals and Derrick Anthony Parker, 21, of Eagan.

The bullet that had been in Antonio Seals’ arm is believed to have come from a .38-caliber handgun that was later recovered, the complaint said.

Antonio Seals told a homicide investigator that Parker drove him to the station and he’d planned to sell a “zip of weed” to Coppage for $300, but that the others in the car didn’t know he had a gun, the complaint said.

Coppage put his hand in his jacket and acted as if he was going to pull money out, Seals told the investigator. “At the same time Coppage opened the door and ‘he just shot me,’ ” Seals said. “Seals said Coppage hopped out of the car and he shot Coppage.”

The investigator said of Coppage: “He didn’t pull out a gun.”

Seals said, “So why would he run out of the car?” and requested a lawyer, the complaint said.

An autopsy showed Coppage had been grazed by a bullet on his right arm and right thigh. A bullet went in his mouth, fractured a tooth, perforated his tongue and came to rest in his throat. A second bullet entered his right armpit and perforated his lungs and the arch of his aorta. His died from loss of blood.

A bullet removed from Coppage’s body is believed to have come from the recovered .38-caliber handgun. It will be sent to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension for analysis.

Police said the two others arrested, Parker and Alfonso Seals, have been released pending further investigation.

Juvenile records for children younger than 16 are not public, and court records list no criminal record for Antonio Seals.

Coppage’s convictions include criminal damage to property, DWI and four for theft. His mother noted that none was for violent offenses.

Coppage, who graduated from Robbinsdale Cooper High School, was studying business at North Hennepin Community College and aspired to start a sneaker store, Williams said. He was living in Minneapolis with his girlfriend and their 9-month-old son, she said.

Coppage was about 2-1/2 years old when his cousins were killed, and he used to tell his mother that he had memories of the children.

In 1994, Andre Coppage, a teen gang member, witnessed a murder. Gang members threw Molotov cocktails in his apartment in an attempt to kill him. Instead, his five brothers and sisters, ages 2 to 11, were murdered. Two people were convicted in the case.

Andre Coppage said Monday that he watched Devonte Coppage grow up.

“I’ve been seeing teenagers die around St. Paul since I was a teen myself,” he said. “Now it’s my cousin, who I loved to death.”

Mara Gottfried has been a Pioneer Press reporter since 2001, mostly covering public safety. Gottfried lived in St. Paul as a young child and returned to the Twin Cities after graduating from the University of Maryland. You can reach her at 651-228-5262.

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